Sick Moon
by sarunotoki
Summary: Want 'verse. Sequel to Miserable Chord: Ed finally finds a way to restore Al, and Roy finds out after the fact. :Pre-RoyxEd:


It wasn't Roy who realised what they'd done, who figured out where they'd gone, who called in the middle of the night and spoke in a frantic tumble of dreadful epiphany. It wasn't Roy who listened, wide awake from the first word and feeling his insides chill from the second, who let Fuery trip himself to a halt before assuring him with a firm, "Alright," and the confident instruction to call the others. It wasn't Roy who was the first out of the vehicle when they reached the abandoned house, though Maes did tell him about it, hands shaking briefly on the cup of bitter, lukewarm coffee.

There hadn't been much of anything at the site, apparently, nothing like Ed never wrote about in his reports. Maybe later, Havoc would joke about how considerate that was, and maybe they would laugh without the sound catching bittersweet in their throats. Because there hadn't been a mess, no blood splattered up the walls or body parts strewn in distorted masses across the floor, but there had been an array. The inside of the house had been completely hollowed out to accommodate it, rooms and furniture and carpet pushed out or down so there was nothing left but the flat canvas of wooden floorboards and the superficial protection of the roof and the walls.

Maes described the array briefly, a few words that had no technical bearing on alchemy whatsoever, before they stopped at the rundown building for Roy to remove all sign of it from the earth. The fact was, words like _intricate_ and _beautiful_ did the circle no more justice than calling the sun 'warm' did. It was a work unrivalled by anything _theorised_ before, much less achieved, and Roy had no doubt he would never see anything so perfectly brilliant for the rest of his life.

Maybe later, he would stop hoping that that was so.

Part of Roy – _most_ of Roy – didn't want to hear the rest, didn't want the image that came with the knowledge, but he listened, leaned his shoulder mutely into Maes' as the man spoke with a dazed kind of horror.

They had been curled together in the middle of the array, naked and still and twined together like they shared a womb. Edward's back had been facing the door, littered with old scars but no new wounds, grown up enough now that he sheltered the other figure completely from view, save for the arm draped over his waist and the hint of two human legs tangled with his own. It wasn't hard to imagine the clutch of sick expectation in the moments it took Alex to break the circle, in the eternity of paces it took to reach the figures. It wasn't hard to imagine the next moment, the stretch of a single breath when it seemed they were too pale, too silent, too still; Roy didn't have to, because it was right there, in Maes' voice and Maes' face and rising up in his own chest.

There was a long, ragged silence before Maes started speaking again.

The light from the torches had mixed with the shadows writhing on the boys' skin, so they'd missed the minute rise and fall of Edward's ribs. It was only right there, crouched low with one hand outstretched to check desperately for a pulse, that Maes had heard the soft hush of two shallow exhalations, perfectly in time.

They had tried to lift them separately, but Alphonse had cried out, hoarse and weak and very much like he was in pain, and Edward, still unconscious, had snarled in reply to the threat, bared his teeth, pulled his brother close with a feral kind of strength while Al clung back with white-knuckled terror. So Alex had simply scooped them both up, held them low so Fuery could cover them with the blankets he had produced from somewhere, and carried them to the cars without a word of ceremony.

Roy hadn't known they'd gone missing at all until a full five days later – today, half an hour ago, when Maes met him at the train station. The man had looked – did look – haggard, and more than a little worse for wear, but he'd been wearing a grin that said he'd done something Roy wasn't going to like, which he had absolutely no intention of apologising for.

"Maes..."

Edward had finally woken up for a disoriented minute yesterday evening; long enough to ask about Alphonse and take two mouthfuls of water from the cup Riza had offered. His condition had rapidly improved after that, until he was able to sit and attempt to eat late this afternoon, complete with an affronted grumble about hospital food, hospital beds and hospital needles.

"What would you have done?" Maes asked, fixing Roy with a look that refuted all his arguments before he could make them. "We didn't get you up to Minister so you could throw it away for no good reason."

_But it's Edward_, all his organs protested instantly, _it's Alphonse. They're good reason_, at the same time that, _but I should have been here!_ wailed up from his bones.

And Maes said, "See?" into the silence, like Roy had spoken every word aloud. "They're alive and well, the initial damage control has been taken care of. The only thing you would have accomplished by being here is having a week's worth of bad coffee overnight, and an overwhelming loss of favour in Cabinet."

"I know that – I wouldn't have just left." _But_, his heart stuttered. "Obviously I couldn't do anything, but I would have liked to know if they..." _nearly died, were in maybe-comas, finally reached their goal_, but he couldn't quite make the words come, so gestured with a hand instead.

Maes sighed.

"You can say that now, but if I'd called you when you were halfway across the country? You've never been able to be objective when it comes to the Elrics, especially when Ed does something like this."

Roy didn't need to ask what _like this_ it was. _Like this_ was not trusting them enough to tell them he was nearly finished his research, let alone planning to implement it. _Like this_ was deliberately waiting until Roy was outside the city so he couldn't find out what they were doing and make them stop and _think_. _Like this_ was risking not only his own life, but Alphonse's as well, and doing so in such a way that they would have both just been gone, without word or trace or apology.

"I seem to remember having this conversation before." He said, instead of proving the man right by blowing something up. Maes, the bastard, looked at him like he knew exactly how badly his fingers were itching, and just grinned wide to match the glittering laughter in his eyes.

"Well, it must be as true as it's always been, then." The man declared, finally uncurling himself from the sombre hunch over his knees. He leaned back in the plastic hospital chair and tossed the rest of the coffee down his throat with a grimace. "I'm going home to my wife, and now that you're back, Elysia and I are skipping school together tomorrow. Tell Mr. Grumman I'm sick or something."

"Malaria?"

"Better make it leprosy, to be certain." Roy snorted a laugh through his nose and felt some of the weight lift from his chest.

"Keep away from headquarters this time, or we'll have to cut something off for authenticity."

"I make no promises." Maes retorted, nose in the air but a more genuine smile on his lips. "Go see the boys already, and get some sleep. You look like hell."

"I will tell Elysia what happened to that boy she liked."

"Ah, I'm going! Sweet dreams, Roy."

"Good night, Maes."

Roy watched his friend go, noting the weary gait and the optimistic set of his shoulders. He tried to summon even a hint of anger, the flare of righteous indignation at having been deceived, manipulated, _protected_, but could find only a wry smile hovering at the edge of his lips. Yes, it was hard to swallow that both Elrics had been _missing_, had been in the hospital for nearly a week without him knowing of it. Yes, it made his stomach roll in a slow, wrenching twist when he thought that the two boys could have been dead for days while he just sat in meetings and debated policy. And yes, all his insides squirmed and lurched at being rendered helpless as someone effortlessly orchestrated his actions, friend or not.

But _yes_, both Elrics had been safe in the hospital while Roy was too far away to do anything, both Elrics were alive and damage-free and _flesh _and, as usual, both Elrics effortlessly rewrote the world, until Roy could really only feel a surreal kind of elation.

He levered himself up from the hard seat with an internal grimace – two days on a train hadn't been painless when he was young and idealistic, and it certainly hadn't gotten any better now he was older and disillusioned – and tried to keep the limp out of his stride as much as possible. Tomorrow would be worse, he knew. There was small hope that he would be able to escape using the dark wood cane, tucked into one corner of his wardrobe, for at least a couple of days. Yet even that, an indignity that grated on him even after nearly three years, couldn't inspire more than a brief moment of vague irritation as he made his way down the corridor.

All hospital doors looked the same, he'd discovered, until someone lay behind them. It had made his stomach chill and clench at first, but thanks to Edward's determined and rather stubbornly thorough pursual of the public health system, Roy now only found it mildly disconcerting. It wasn't that the doors changed – that one time had been pure Edward, too disoriented to work the handle but coordinated enough to clap and rid himself of the obstacle altogether – and Roy knew better than to believe that the Elrics could _actually_ alter their environment with their mere presence. But it was true, nonetheless, that a door he had never seen before looked not just similar, but intimately familiar, and a room he had never entered wasn't just another white box, but somewhere he felt like he'd been going for years.

No, he wasn't very objective when it came to the Elrics, but it wasn't his fault that all rationality and logic and truths of the universe fled from so much as a hint of them.

Havoc glanced up from his seat in the corner of the room and gave a flick of a salute, his grin equal parts sheepishness and welcome. The quirk of Roy's own smile pulled at his lips before he realised it was coming and he just let it lift all the way into an amused curve, watched the relieved sag of the man's shoulders. When the Elrics deemed to give him control of his emotions again, it would be Hughes that found a vengeful fire burning under the seat of his pants; the rest of them would merely be awarded a thick stack of regulations to review, and whatever tedious, menial, senselessly complicated errands Roy felt like having them run for as long as he could feel the cold knot lingering under his ribs.

Whether Havoc read something in Roy's expression or was simply that desperate for a cigarette, the man's smile turned a little strained and he stood stiffly before all but scurrying out of the room. Roy's mouth slid all the way into a grin, then, and he rolled his eyes, knowing there was no one conscious to see him. He'd spent every year, month, day since Ishbal trying to make the world _better_, and every effort still felt like a near-futile struggle. The brothers had spent not even seven years chasing after nothing but their own goal, and somehow the world just righted itself around them. Now, it bloomed bright and full and glorious, and made him want to smile in a way he hadn't since he'd lost his virginity.

He supposed he could resent them for that, but it was hard to direct anger at the people who reminded you of all the reasons life was worthwhile. And... well, it was even harder when said people were curled innocently under white sheets, facing each other even in sleep and breathing peace together like they shared a single set of lungs.

Edward had slept in his presence on a bare handful of occasions, but Roy was certain the boy had never looked like _this_. There was no line drawn between the youth's brows, no tension tightening the edges of his mouth or firming his jaw to stone. Instead, his face was smooth, clear, relaxed in a way Roy had never imagined it could be. It made him look both older and younger; maturity reflected in a silent acceptance of what is, and youth in the loss of an old man's regret.

Tucked in a gentle curve against the mattress, a pillow sitting neglected above his head and face framed by a thick tangle of gold, Edward was breathtaking in a way only mythical creatures had any right to be.

Roy blinked, remembered to exhale, jerked his gaze away before he could forget to make himself do so and – blinked again, when he realised what his eyes had found instead.

Not a six foot suit of armour any more; a round-faced youth, fit comfortably onto the length of a single hospital bed. Soft, warmth-tinted skin in the place of steel, the smooth line of shoulder and rib and leg to replace sharp spikes and metal plates. No white plume attached to an empty helmet, either, but hair the colour of wet sand, standing up all over the boy's new scalp in a dishevelled mess. And no hollow, unnatural echo of false breath, but the rhythmic hush of real lungs, the steady beat of a real heart, the soundless murmur of real organs and real veins and real nerves, all working beneath real skin.

Over six years, and he'd never known that this was what lay behind that half-metallic voice and those shifting eyes of light; just yesterday, and he could have sat next to this boy on the train and not known him. Now, seeing the still-young cast to his features and the still-new freshness of his skin, Roy wondered how he'd ever seen anything else.

"Hey, Bastard." The voice was quiet, cracked low with sleep, but it was the lethargic warmth leaking up through the words that made it nearly unrecognisable.

Yet when he turned, Edward was still the only other person in the room. The boy hadn't moved, but his eyes were open enough to reveal the temptation of that ever-startling gold. And they were fixed on Roy, not with their usual intensity or challenge or ire, but with a comfortable kind of ease that Roy never would have thought to associate with Fullmetal at all.

"Good evening, Fullmetal." He murmured back, inclining his head ever so slightly and just letting the smile wander onto his face as it pleased. "How are you feeling?" Edward – blinked, like he was surprised by the reminder of his own presence. And then he stared, blinked, snorted a strange huff of laughter through his nose.

"I'm – it's – everything, nothing, I dunno." Roy had never heard anyone sound so whole-heartedly _pleased_ at their own uncertainty. "He's breathing. After – he just... started, like he'd never missed one. I hadn't – I never thought about it, that I'd hear him breathe again."

To which Roy could have said; _despite your penchant for destruction, Fullmetal, you do seem to have a remarkable ability to escape relatively unscathed_, or; _your ability for forethought and planning never ceases to amaze me, Fullmetal_. But there was no darkness biting at the edges of the boy's words, no bitterness creeping up to sharpen each syllable on his tongue, and Edward hadn't even given thought yet to how vulnerable he looked, languid and relaxed with that unguarded expression on his face.

So what came out of Roy's mouth instead was; "Even if you doubted it, Edward, we all knew you would," which slapped the drowsy calm right off the boy's face and left only a look of complete incomprehension.

Roy's smile twitched slightly wider and was joined by a now-familiar shiver of warmth in his chest; even after nearly a decade, Edward's stubborn obliviousness to his own brilliance remained one of the boy's most helplessly endearing qualities. Roy had achieved some truly unbelievable lengths of absolute quiet (it was Edward, after all) over the years, simply by voicing even a hint of honest admiration.

Though, as stunned silences went, this one was becoming quite impressive. Edward had opened and closed his mouth three times still withou, and Roy was starting to consider the fact that it may have been more than a little unsporting to hit the boy with absolute faith in his abilities. Especially since he still hadn't quite recovered from the actual success.

"Hughes said he hasn't woken yet." Roy said on the fourth attempt, watching Edward's face carefully. The boy had managed to assure Fuery, during one of his longer bouts of consciousness, but he'd always been irresistibly convincing when he wanted to be, and Fuery was likewise almost stunningly gullible. If there was even a hint that Edward was clinging to desperate, ultimately false hope... but, no, the blankness faded from the blond's face and was replaced by a soft expression, with no hint of grief or guilt at all.

Roy felt the knot in his stomach loosen, unravel, dissolve.

"He will." Came the confident reply, in a voice low and husky and warm. The boy's gaze had drifted to the unconscious occupant of the room, and Roy made no attempt to call the attention back to himself. He wasn't at all sure he'd be able withstand that look in those eyes, should they focus on him. Edward's voice was bad enough, rolling over the pulse of steady breaths like the slow caress of a dream. "His body needs to adjust, is all. I couldn't get his old one back because... because, so I had to make a new one. People usually have years to learn everything, you know, depth perception and hormones and crap, but it was all just... _there_, in the space of a minute. Once it figures out how to function and process properly, he'll be fine. He just needs some time, is all."

And where Edward Elric could harness a seemingly inexhaustible amount of energy in pursuit of his brother's happiness, his tone gave every indication that he could summon equally infinite patience for this.

"Good." The word came out coated in relief, satisfaction, pride, and Roy really couldn't find the thought to chastise himself when a slow smile was spreading over Edward's face like _that_, reflecting it all back at him.

"Yeah." The blond agreed, soft, soft, soft in the presence of his own miracle. "Yeah, it is."


End file.
